My friend Carmen Albișteanu, who’s a certified nutrition coach, wrote a comprehensive guide about intermittent fasting (I.F.) and how it works.
Since I’ve been experimenting with I.F. for years, without having any clue it’s called this way, I left her a mile-long comment, in hope that it will be somewhat helpful to her readers who are considering fasting (and not for religious reasons).
TL;DR: I usually have dinner around 10 PM, breakfast’s around 4 PM, so that’s an ~18 hour window. I was feeling really bad before, when I was forcing myself to eat in the morning, so instead I decided to listen to what my body signals and eat whenever I’m hungry, instead of what the social conventions dictate.
The main benefit? A mental clarity and increased work efficiency. I’ve also been feeling better during the half marathons that I ran on an empty stomach.
But better go read on her blog my 0.02, together with her article and reply.
And if you still feel the need to dig deeper afterwards, I recommend you to check out these two interviews with Dr. Peter Attia, Dom D’Agostino, or read this book by Dr. Jason Fung: The Complete Guide to Fasting.
P.S. also food related, this week marks my year-long anniversary since I quit cereal grains (that means anything based on wheat: bread, pastas, pizza or any other baked goods). It started as a one-month experiment, also caused by the fact that I wasn’t feeling well, and…oh, well, one year later, since the results were remarkable, I’m still (mostly) not eating wheat. But I’ll write about this some other time.
P.P.S. just realized that I’ve been writing a lot about sports, food and sleep lately. Guess priorities really do change when you’re 30. 12 years ago, when I started this blog, I was mostly writing about what hip-hop concerts I was attending every night. ????
